This is going to be a long one. We did a lot of the fun summer things throughout the remainder of our summer. There are only 1 or 2 pictures for each thing, so I've lumped them all into this one post.
We went to the summer exhibit at the Thanksgiving Point Gardens. It was called Imaginaria and had a lot of fun activities set up for children. The boys were almost too old for most of it, but they were there with their cousins, so it ended up being fun for all of them still. The gardens were set up in 5 different sections, each with a different theme. There were some free activities and some other activities that cost extra. The themes included pirates, dinosaurs, princesses, water, and bugs. The kids enjoyed the foam and the inflatable obstacle course the most.
Ashley and I went to a couple of the events put on by the city during Lehi Round Up week. This did not include the actual rodeo which is the highlight for most of Lehi. Rodeo's are just not our thing. But we did attend a dog event in the park on one of the mornings. We could not talk the boys into coming with us. There was a family that puts on dog trick shows that came and did a show. This is something Ashley is very interested in possibly doing in the futures, so we went and talked to the lady who did the show afterwards to see how they got started with their business. They just train the dogs at home for fun and then started doing the shows for free at first and then people started to pay them. We decided that it could be a fun side gig for her, but probably not something that would offer a steady income.
The police department also did a demonstration with their K9 dogs after the stunt show. It is amazing to see the things those K9 police dogs can do. Our favorite was the labrador that could sniff out electronics.
They had a pet photographer at the park that day that was giving away a free photo shoot. There were not a lot of people that brought dogs with them, so the line for the photo shoot was not long at all. We thought Lula's pictures turned out so cute, considering she does not love strangers. She growled and barked at the poor lady when she approached us to invite us over to their tent to get the pictures done.
We also attended a free Comedy Sportz show on one of the nights. Ashley really has enjoyed being part of her Improv Troupe at the school this year, so it was fun to watch some of the somewhat professionals in action. The show was a lot of fun. They even took one of Ashley's shouted out suggestions: the word "penultimate" for a spelling bee game. We are pretty sure the actors did not even know what the word was or have any idea how to spell it. That made it even funnier for the two of us. She learned that word from her favorite book series, "A Series of Unfortunate Events."
Camden and I missed our Stake Mother's/Sons swim party at the Lehi Outdoor pool while we were in New York at the beginning of summer. So I told him that we would make our own mother/son date at the pool to make up for it during the summer. We took advantage of a time when everyone else was gone one afternoon to go to the pool. We threw the football around a lot, as well as some other balls, went down the slides a few times and I watched Camden climb both rock walls and jump off of the diving board. We left after about and hour and a half.
We met Danny down in Provo one day for lunch so that we could go to the Philippines restaurant down there. After hearing Alyssa talk about the food for 6 months and some of us never having tried halo halo, we wanted to go and try some of the food there again. Most of us hadn't been since August of last year. We ordered way to much food and all of us left very full. The kids and I went to the pool down there afterwards.
My hair got REALLY long. I finally got it cut and colored again.
The new hairstyle has been so much better for the summer.
I took the boys to the indoor glow in the dark mini golf course and the arcade on half price arcade game day at Fat Cats. They put their tickets together to get a Minecraft stuffy and a big inflated ball.
Ashley took dog sitting to a whole new level this summer with puppy sitting for a couple of different families. It was a full time job while she was doing it and she had to be constantly watching them to make sure they were not destroying anything in the yard. They did pretty good. She also groomed a couple of dogs for some of the neighbors. I told her not to take on actual haircuts if she can avoid that since she isn't properly trained and we don't want the clippers we have to wear out on other people's dogs. But she did trim a few nails and give some baths. I think she earned over $1000 during her summer break. I tried to have her look for a job this summer, but she probably would not have earned that much with a part time job and she definitely wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.
We went with Becky/Jake and Steve/Pam to Stadium of Fire this year. Our kids opted not to go, which made us feel a little guilty since it also made it difficult for them to watch fireworks. But they did walk around a bit that night in the neighborhood and walked to the main road outside of our neighborhood with our neighbors to watch the Thanksgiving Point firework show. Stadium of Fire was fun, but the concert always feels long to us, especially when the artist is someone we are not familiar with. I knew a few Rascal Flatts songs before going, but not nearly enough to make it super entertaining. We enjoyed watching the group in front of us get way into the concert.
Danny was given the opportunity to take our family to a Salt Lake Bees game, with a catered dinner beforehand. I'm not sure the boys have ever been to a baseball game and Ashley probably hasn't been since she was 2. The game was in the new stadium, which was quite nice. We got rained on a little bit at the end of our meal and before we went to our seats, but not again after that. Ashley said that of all the sporting events we have taken her too, this was her favorite. Baseball games are a lot more chill, and not so loud. She still wanted us to leave after 4 innings, but we managed to talk her into staying until the 7th inning stretch. We were glad that we did, because at some point during the 6th or 7th inning, a foul ball was hit to our side of the field (still on the grass, but I had noticed earlier that the outfielders kept throwing those balls into the crowd.) So as soon as the foul ball was hit, I told Camden to stand up and call out to the outfielder. He looked right at Camden and threw the ball right to him. Fortunately, Danny was sitting next to him and was able to catch the ball for him. I don't think he anticipated what it would be like to actually catch a baseball coming towards him. It made a fun end to our evening.
We met up with the Kilgore cousins again at a new park. Ashley came, too, because I told her that she could bring Lula. We did not anticipate that this new park would have signs posted everywhere saying no dogs were allowed. They seem to be doing this with all of the big, new, nice parks around here. I don't understand why they would ban dogs from a park. We brought Lula in with us anyways and sat her down with the adults under the pavilion. She was being so good and just sitting there with us and one of the park/city employees came over to tell us about the no dogs rule and Ashley just about lost it. She was in tears after he walked away and said she shouldn't have come. We told her to just stay put with Lula and had her walk out of the park a different way to mostly avoid the play area. The kids had fun at the park but did not spend as much time in the splash pad area as we expected. The adults were all overheated after sitting in the heated shade for an hour.
We had 2 free tickets to Splash Summit to use this summer, so I took the kids. It was a long and tiring day, but we all had a lot of fun. Ashley and I did not want to do the drop slides, so we sent the boys up to do them on their own. They ended up not being able to go down the first time because they didn't take a mat up with them and I guess they don't let you ride anymore without a mat. But they went up later in the day and did it and had fun. Ashley and I also did not want to do the tube drop slide called boomerang (its shaped like a bug U and I got really hurt on it last summer when my ankle hit the metal railing at the bottom of the slide. Now I have PTSD from going on it). So the boys did that one together, too.
Tyler and I did the Temple to Temple run down in Provo on Pioneer Day. Ashley had been at girls camp that week, which was a lot of fun for her. She got to be a YCL again and had a lot of responsibilities at the ward and stake level. She got home that morning, so Danny and Camden stayed home from the race so they could be there to get Ashley. Tyler really wanted to try a race and he had been running all summer to prep himself for it. We went down there plenty early and were parked and headed over to the shuttle almost an hour before race time. We walked past the temple on our way over to the shuttle line.
The line to get on the shuttle was CRAZY long, stretching the whole block. We thought we had plenty of time, but there were only 4 shuttles running that morning, so the line did not move as quickly as we had hoped. we were dropped off near the start line about the time the race was scheduled to start.
We walked past the other temple site on our way to the start line. This was after the shuttle dropped us off and during the 1/4 mile walk from the shuttle stop to the start line.
We saw the hordes of people starting the race as we were approaching. We decided not to go all the way to the start line and just joined in the group when we got to them. Tyler did not run the whole race, but he still did pretty well. I definitely could have run in longer stretches than he did, but I just stayed with him. His best run was in the middle because we had passed a friend of his from school and he was determined to stay ahead of him for the rest of the race. Tyler took off on the last straight run to the finish line. I could not keep up with him. I found him at the end and we grabbed a couple of the giveaways at the finish line then we walked back to our car and headed home. We ended up getting there before Ashley, so I was able to still go and pick her up.
Lula was in heat during one of the puppy sitting jobs and the little boy puppy kept trying to do you-know-what with her, so we borrowed a doggie diaper from Ashley's friend. We thought the little ruffle skirt was so cute, so we ended up buying a set of our own.
This was the naughty puppy (the white one).
We went to Kennedi's birthday party, on her birthday. Danny was out of town and Ashley had something that night and was not able to come with us. The boys had fun playing with their cousins and the cake was so cute.
I took the kids to Cowabunga Bay during the last full week of summer. Danny was pretty busy with work, so he wasn't able to come with us. Cowabunga bay only lets you come in the park for about 3 and a half hours. We chose to go to the afternoon session on the day that we went. We got there nice and early and got a good spot in line, and then they were not able to scan my screenshot tickets. We also did not receive the confirmation email with the tickets, so we had about 50 people pass us while we were trying to figure out the tickets. We finally managed to zoom in and crop the screenshot so that the tickets could be scanned. So annoying. It ended up working out fine, because our chairs were in a good location and there were hardly any lines for the slides that whole time we were there. And we had no trouble getting the free-for-all tubes in the lazy river any time we wanted them to sit in. It was a fun afternoon. We grabbed dinner near the park after it closed to let the traffic lighten up a little before driving home.
The boys new backpacks turned out so good. I had to order the Chargers patches special and then sew them on.
Ashley and I had to do some school shopping before school started to get her the new school uniforms. Ashley hates shopping!! So I bribed her with the promise of a back-to-school pedicure after the shopping trip. The uniform shopping did not go well. We got what we needed, but were unable to purchase a new skirt or pants because the biggest sizes in the store were still too small for Ashley. We decided that we would just get by with the uniforms sha already has for this year. I am just glad that the school is having a 1 year grace period that will get us through Ashley's senior year. We tried a new nail salon out for our pedicures. They are super close to home and they did a good job. I tried the hot wax treatment, but would probably not do it again because I really did not notice that it made any difference in the dryness of my feet afterwards.
I have some more pictures from the summer that I will make into their own posts, so that is it for this one.
